With the recent announcement that the Sea Venom (ANL in France) missile has finally achieved Initial Operating Capability (IOC) with Fleet Air Arm’s Wildcat helicopters, the British navy will now be deploying an Anglo-French weapon. This success is but a small part of a wider missile development partnership with France that now spans the whole spectrum, from deep strike to air defence.
When the Royal Navy confirmed in early October that the Anglo-French Sea Venom (ANL) missile had reached Initial Operating Capability, the announcement barely made a ripple outside specialist circles. Yet this milestone, which is described by Navy Lookout as giving the Fleet Air Arm a “modern long-range strike option” for the Wildcat helicopter, is far more than a technical upgrade. It marks the consolidation of a missile partnership between France and the United Kingdom that has quietly become one of Europe’s most productive defence cooperations.
For two countries that often disagree on politics and strategy, the missile domain has become a zone of continuity, credibility and shared industrial advantage. And at a time when Germany is dispersing its long-range ambitions across American systems, domestic initiatives and even a proposed partnership with Japan, the Franco-British model stands out as Europe’s most coherent path to sovereign strike capability.
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The story with France begins much later in the mid-1990s, when France and the UK were both seeking a next-generation deep-strike missile to penetrate hardened defences at long range. The result was Storm Shadow, known in France as SCALP-EG, an air-launched cruise missile designed for “pre-planned attacks against stationary high value fixed or stationary targets,” in the words of manufacturer MBDA. It entered RAF service in 2003 and soon became a mainstay of Franco-British expeditionary power, used in Iraq, Libya and Syria.
This shared operational experience mattered. It created an alignment of doctrine, as both nations used Storm Shadow in similar ways and shared lessons on targeting, survivability and battle-damage assessment. It also created an alignment of politics: when France and the UK signed the Lancaster House defence treaties in 2010, missile cooperation sat at the heart of the agenda.
Lancaster House 2.0
The UK government still describes the Lancaster House framework as part of a “shared responsibility to strengthen Euro-Atlantic security.” In July 2025, London and Paris signed “Lancaster House 2.0,” reaffirming missile cooperation as one of the pillars of their future force structure. Indeed, this 2.0 version places particular importance in an “‘Entente Industrielle’ to enhance capability and industrial co-operation,” notably mentioning FC/ASW and Deep Strike capabilities.
Sea Venom (ANL), which has now entered front-line Royal Navy service, is the most recent operational illustration of this alignment. Developed jointly by MBDA for the Royal Navy and the French Navy, the missile restores a capability the UK lost when Sea Skua was retired, i.e. the ability to neutralise small warships from a safe distance. Commander of the Wildcat Maritime Force, Commander Andrew Henderson, stated that “The integration of Sea Venom represents a significant enhancement to the Royal Navy’s lethality via its ability to strike targets at range. Its precision, range and versatility ensures that our frontline crews are equipped to meet the challenges of a multi domain and complex environment.” The UK (and Italy) also placed an order for a number of MBDA-developed Aster 30 missiles for naval defence systems this year.
Unlike many EU industrial projects launched on paper and completed decades later, ANL/Sea Venom is a functioning, deployable weapon. It has reached the fleet before many observers predicted, possibly preluding the next steps in this revitalised Franco-British industrial entente.
STRATUS: A shared DPS future?
The centre of gravity of Franco-British cooperation is now the STRATUS programme, unveiled publicly in September 2025. STRATUS is the new name for FC/ASW (Future Cruise / Anti-Ship Weapon), the system intended to replace Storm Shadow/SCALP and Exocet.
MBDA presented STRATUS as the product of “strong European cooperation to deliver decisive capabilities for protecting sovereignty.” France, the UK and Italy are the programme’s industrial and operational anchors. Two families of missiles are in development: a low-observable deep-strike weapon (STRATUS LO) and a next-generation anti-ship missile (STRATUS RS). “These new advances on STRATUS are the result of France, UK and Italy’s strong commitment to develop Europe’s present and future critical capabilities. Maturing such a large portfolio of technologies in such a short amount of time has required a massive effort between the nations,” explained MBDA CEO Eric Béranger.
The propulsion segment of STRATUS is built on a dedicated Franco-British partnership. Since 2022, Rolls-Royce and Safran Power Units have been working jointly under an Assessment Phase contract to mature a new-generation cruise-missile engine, as both companies confirmed publicly. The goal is clear: field a sovereign propulsion solution for Europe’s next deep-strike weapon before the end of the decade.
France and the UK have also demonstrated a willingness to sustain legacy systems together. In July, then French Defence Minister Sébastien Lecornu confirmed the resumption of SCALP production, partly to replenish stocks reduced by deliveries to Ukraine. “Supplied to Ukraine, the Franco-British SCALP/Storm Shadow missile has demonstrated its effectiveness in modern high-intensity combat, in decisive situations,” Lecornu exclaimed on X after visiting Stevenage with British counterpart John Healey.
Europe’s Diverging DPS paths
Set against this, Germany’s path looks less coherent. Berlin has moved quickly to plug its long-range strike gap by turning to the United States. In July 2025, German defence minister Boris Pistorius confirmed that Germany had formally requested to buy the US Army’s Typhon launcher, a containerised system able to fire Tomahawk and SM-6 missiles, as a bridge until European long-range weapons are ready. Subsequent reporting in The Times suggests that Berlin plans to buy around 400 Tomahawk Block V cruise missiles and three Typhon launchers as part of a wider €377 billion rearmament plan.
At the same time, Germany is looking at a “Taurus Neo” with a Japanese engine. Reuters reported in October 2025 that Kawasaki Heavy Industries is in talks to co-develop new engines for Germany’s Taurus cruise missile, highlighting another non-European actor entering what could be a future European strike system. The paradox is stark: this would add a second external dependency at the very moment Berlin argues for European sovereignty.
These decisions are understandable in their own context, yet they push Europe toward fragmentation. Instead of converging around a common missile ecosystem, states risk assembling incompatible mixes of American, European and hybrid systems, each with its own industrial base, political limits and operational constraints.
For London, which has spent more than two decades developing and using deep-strike weapons alongside France, this trend matters. A continent divided between separate strike families will struggle to sustain coherent stockpiles, production lines or joint planning in a crisis.
That is why the shape of Britain’s partnerships is not a secondary issue. With France, it can share design authority, manufacturing responsibility and long-term control over the weapons that give its armed forces reach. Sea Venom is already in service. Storm Shadow is back in production. Stratus is moving into its public phase. Aster continues to anchor European air defence. Taken together, these programmes form not a patchwork but a spectrum.
